Ben Lowry: Unionism needs help, not a Neutral Ireland Office (NIO)

The NIO has over the years had many fine people who have done good things.

But I am talking about its culture in the last decade or two, when it has been no counterpoint to Ireland's pro nationalist Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

I sometimes think that a better name for the NIO should be the Neutral Ireland Office.

Consider the following imbalance:

1. The whole apparatus of the Irish state lobbies for the interests of that section of the population in Northern Ireland that does not want NI to exist.

2. Unionists battle for NI to stay a full part of the United Kingdom, but clearly lack the bandwidth to achieve that on their own.

3. The NIO, instead of offering the full apparatus of the UK state to keep NI in existence, stands between the above two groups.

This week was a wretched example of NIO neutrality.

Our reporter asked the NIO on Tuesday if they thought "joint rule" from UK/Ireland was feasible if the DUP did not return to Stormont and within hours their reply had sidestepped the question. We published that evasion on Wednesday, the same day that Stephen Nolan's team posed a similar question (getting the same failure to rule it out).

Many people thought this saga of little consequence because Joint Authority could not happen without the tearing up of the Belfast Agreement.

But this missed a key point: nationalists were asking for a mile to get a hundred yards.

As if on cue, Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar said there would have to be an enhanced role for Ireland (rather than Joint Authority) in the event of direct rule.

London should have replied: 'Sorry, but why?'

There was no increase say from 2002 to 2007 when the UK suspended Stormont due to republican bad conduct. The Labour government ignored Irish protests.

Tony Blair understood that if republicans thought Stormont's fall would lead to increased Irish input then they might abandon devolution.

This was why for the three years of the 2017 SF collapse of devolution I was almost alone as a commentator who repeatedly said it must not result in reward, either their ransom of an Irish language act or via an Irish tinged direct rule.

However, the UK government - while it never even hinted at criticism of SF for its collapse, let alone applied the sort of pressure it is applying now to the DUP - at least ruled out Joint Authority.

It also resisted the nationalist claim that if Stormont is down power moves to the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC). London only let that body to meet three times after 2017.

In recent months the NIO has quietly acceded to Dublin's demand for scheduled regular meetings (now three a year) which if there is a long assembly abeyance will bolster Irish claims about BIIGC's remit.

Thus, while the NIO has belatedly ruled out Joint Authority it has already conceded the Irish interpretation of a joint say.

We needed a strictly minimalist approach to Irish input, as a signal to an Irish political establishment that is increasingly nationalist, even before SF take office.

In 2017 on Facebook the former Alliance Party leader, Lord Alderdice, observed: "Why is it that the UK government which has real responsibilities and interests must be non-partisan [on Northern Ireland] but the Irish government which has interests but little responsibility outside its borders is able to be as partisan on the North as it wishes?"

It is lamentable that so few mainland politicians have noticed this double standard.

Since 2010 the Conservative and Unionist Party has appointed secretaries of state who have been mostly uninformed about NI, and hopelessly dependent on NIO officials for advice.

The latest examples, Chris Heaton-Harris and Steve Baker, have shown little awareness of the multi-pronged and often subtle assaults on the Union. Did Mr Heaton-Harris now know an election might turbo charge Sinn Fein?

The NIO should have as its mission statement a determination to keep NI in the UK.

It should set up a unit with the sole focus of scanning for, identifying and then challenging all of the many legal and political threats to our place in the UK.

This would mean NIO staff who believe in the mission and would include fast-tracking of a new generation of people like the Tory commentator Henry Hill (who is so sharp on the threats to the Union in Scotland and NI).

NIO failures in recent years are many, from the saga around the disgraceful compensation paid to an employee over the hanging of the Queen's portrait (the precedent of which has never been properly reversed) to the weak signals it sent out over the de Souza citizenship case to its repeated failures to slap down Irish over-reach.

An inquiry should be held into how the NIO let the legislative details of the Stormont House legacy plan get so near the statue books.

I have discussed the NIO culture with people in London who are sympathetic to the Union but who say unionist failures of diplomacy have helped caused the problem, But the government should not let NI suffer constitutional harm because of such failures.

Every so often political sources tell me that the NIO is going to change, because person X or Y is going to be appointed to role A or B. But nothing changes much.

Influential Tories have failed to realise that NI needs urgent help when nationalist Ireland and much of the political centre is trying to edge NI out of the UK.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

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